Obama Derangement Syndrome Personified

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The president does some things that I like. The president does other things that I do not like. This has been the case with every president of my lifetime, with the possible exception of C-Plus Augustus, and I even liked some of the stuff he said when he was running. In my life, I have never voted for a president with the expectation that he will selflessly serve the public interest, and that he never will take his own political viability into account, and that he will fulfill all my expectations, or even most of them, or even half of them. This is not because I am apathetic. This is not because I am stupid. This is because I am no longer seven-years old.

Think about this problem in a slightly different way. It's been three years. Why hasn't been there a great iconic impersonator of Barack Obama, like Tina Fey and Sarah Palin or Will Ferrell (or James Adomian) and George W. Bush? A comic impersonator reveals something about the core of an individual. The people imitating Obama seem to think that he's far more left-wing and principled beneath the surface, that if he let out who he really was, how really angry he is at the Republicans, that's the parody they hit. It falls flat, because it's not true to who he is. The truth is that he's a narcissistic sociopath dressed up as a cool corporate brand.

Yes, many is the empire brought down by a competent parodist. Which is why the head of Richard Nixon still hangs on the wall of David Frye's den. And, if you're going to call somebody a sociopath, it's better if you don't do it in a voice that sounds like you borrowed it from Sean Hannity's inner child.

(I know I'm going to be criticized for failing to address the arguments here but, honest to god, where am I supposed to go with this kind of thing? It's like playing tennis with oatmeal, and it also is insulting to Fred Armisen, who I thought was pretty good.)

This alternative narrative is a hard truth to hear, because it carries with it an implicit rejection of American exceptionalism. Yes, American institutions are no better, and in many ways are more malignant, than those of many other countries. Yes, our political leaders, our press, our military leadership, operate in service to sociopathic aims. Yes, our freedoms are often an illusion, unless you fit a very narrow criteria. Yes, our banks are run to rob us, yes, our CIA spies on us, and yes, our government is fundamentally anti-democratic. Yes, our President is a con artist, and yes, nearly every reporter who writes about him participates in this set of lies, because of careerism, social financial reasons, or a simple lack of competence or imagination.

But, the idea that the king is always good, which is where the hope and change narrative draws its deep strength, is something we do not have to accept. We as people can break this spell, and speak to our own dignity, as citizens. We can learn our own power, if in no other manner than in saying at the voting booth and in public, "I do not accept your lies, and though you might take it by force, I will not grant you my consent willingly." We can choose not to address our political officials by their titles. We can work to organize ourselves, and our lives, with those of us who understand that power is something that must be taken, with money, organization, but most of all, with moral courage. It is not something that politicians have except through our consent, consent we have been giving for decades, to a rotten political class.

When I find my vorpal sword, I'm right there with you. The problem with Republicans is that they have bloodthirsty Orcs. The problem with Democrats is that we have angry elves.